A little while ago, I got my hands on Rescuezilla and gave it a spin. If you’re not sure what it is, Rescuezilla is a bootable Linux OS that lives on your USB and calls itself the Swiss army knife of recovery. It comes equipped with a ton of diagnostic tools that are perfect for when you need to access a terminal or partition some drives.
However, there was one feature I gelled with the most; its backup and restore feature. The idea is that you point Rescuezilla at the partitions you want to back up and let it work its magic. In about 4-5 minutes, you have a full image backup of the operating system saved on your storage device. You can then use Rescuezilla to restore that image at any time with just a few clicks. And I know that it’s meant to be used as a backup method, but I’ve ended up using Rescuezilla as a way to cultivate a cryogenic chamber of operating systems. Look, trust me, it’ll make sense.
Rescuezilla is fantastic for “storing” and restoring operating systems
I’m pretty sure it’s not meant to be used like this
So it’s still pretty early days in my Linux adventures. I made the swap from Windows to Linux about half a year ago, and I’ve been having a blast hopping around different distros and sampling what the world of open-source software has to offer me. The only problem is, I kind of want to save my operating systems before I erase them and install something over them.
When I wanted to try Fedora Kinoite over Fedora KDE, I remembered that I had made a backup of Fedora KDE in the guide I wrote for Rescuezilla. So, I made a more recent backup of Fedora KDE, then installed Kinoite over it. I then gave Kinoite a try for a week to see how I liked it, made a backup of it, and then overwrote the current OS with Fedora KDE, so I could better compare and contrast the immutable version of Fedora with the immutable one.
Given that each of my backups takes up around 15GB of my 1TB HDD, I can store a multitude of different operating systems with Rescuezilla and switch between them as needed. The process of backing up and restoring only takes a few clicks with Rescuezilla, and it does all the thinking for you, which makes it extra convenient.
6 of the best open source backup options
If you’re not already backing up your systems, here’s where to start.
Rescuezilla can lock an operating system in ice
One of my favorite parts of the process
When I was doing my Fedora KDE/Kinoite swap-around, I didn’t expect a whole lot when I brought the KDE backup out of hibernation for a little bit. I just assumed it would remember the apps I had installed, and the settings I had changed, my personal files, and that’s about it. So, imagine my surprise when I restored the KDE backup, booted up Chrome, and saw all of the tabs I had open before giving Kinoite a try, sitting there as if I had never left them.
Turns out that, when you create a backup using Rescuezilla, you’re essentially freezing it in time for a little bit. This makes it great for when I want to install a different operating system and keep what I already have, or go back to an old system and start off exactly the same way as I left it.
Here’s why I recommend Linux’s KDE Plasma for Windows escapees
Bring a little Windows with you.
There’s probably a better way to do this
But I’ll stick with this for now
I’m still a Linux newbie, so I’m not 100% familiar with all the ropes yet. I do know that you have the option of creating a home partition for all your personal apps and files. That way, you can erase and reinstall the system files and keep your own stuff intact.
However, what I really like about this Rescuezilla method is that it also makes a backup that I can revert back to at any time. In a way, it’s sort of like a data backup system and a distro-hopping enabler at the same time. Plus, given how quickly and easily Rescuezilla makes creating and restoring images, I don’t really feel the need to explore outside of my comfort zone.
I’m 99% certain there’s an app out there that does all this and better. And when I learn what it is, you’ll probably find me writing about it, too. But for now, Rescuezilla is a nice mix of recovery tools, backups, and OS swaps all in one easy-to-use package, and I love it.
I self-host Syncthing to sync files between my PC, Mac, NAS, and other devices
Syncthing is a neat utility when you want multi-directional file synchronization for your home lab
Rescuezilla is more than just a recovery suite for me
As a recovery tool, Rescuezilla is amazing; as a way of storing operating systems away for later use, it’s fantastic. I don’t think the developers intended it to be used this way, which makes it a little funnier that it unintentionally does this job very well. I’ll have to do some digging and see if there’s anything out there that can replicate this experience.
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